By MAX FILBY
STAFF WRITER
As state testing started at Vanlue Local School last week, seven students tried to take test stress and turn it into happiness.
A high school photography class at Vanlue put together a video with teachers, students, and the school mascot, a Wildcat, dancing to the hit song “Happy” by Pharrell Williams.
The class put the video together in an effort to loosen students up as they started testing, said Craig Tusing, computer science teacher at Vanlue.
“We wanted to get everybody in a good mood with testing starting,” Tusing said. “It’s fun and makes you want to dance.”
So far, the video has more than 2,600 views on YouTube.
“Some of the little kids just want to watch it over and over again,” said Levi Klein, a sophomore. “They all thought it was hilarious.”
Tusing’s students said they didn’t have too much difficulty getting students and teachers to dance, although some needed a little persuading.
“They were OK with it as long as we had the music playing in the background,” Tusing said.
Tusing and his students spent about two weeks filming and editing the video as part of a class project. Each student was given a segment of the video to shoot and edit on his or her own, Tusing said.
“It was kind of fun to see what each of them would find the most interesting to shoot,” Tusing said.
Tusing and his students got the idea to shoot their “Happy” video after seeing one that Heidelberg University in Tiffin made. A video made by Bowling Green State University was also studied by Tusing’s students.
The trend of creating “Happy” videos has caught on, so much so that there is a website called 24 Hours of Happy, which calls itself the first “24-hour music video.” Tusing said he and his students may submit their video to the website.
A year ago, Tusing and his students made a video of the “Harlem Shake,” a momentarily popular dance craze on YouTube. After just one week, though, the “Happy” video surpassed the views received by the group’s former project.
“We were coming off of the trend with that one,” Tusing said of last year’s project. “But, with this one, we still got it when it was fresh enough and popular.”
Online:
Vanlue Happy Video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kAuwwnWSWQ
Filby: 419-427-8422Send an E-mail to Max Filby
Twitter: @MaxFilby